News

Last night I went out to try vegan fried chicken for the first time with some friends (verdict: not bad!). As I bit into my Nashville Hot wings (no bone! wow!) one of them asked me: “So, you write about VR? Isn’t VR dead?”

It was innocently and genuinely phrased, despite the accompanying laughter from others who had previously put the question forward in a more mocking manner. It’s a query that comes up often, and one I always hesitate before trying to answer. And it wasn’t because the heat of the wings just hit me. It also wasn’t because I think it’s a foolish suggestion; I actually think it’s a very valid one.

I simply wonder how to approach it. Do I give the whole spiel? The one that basically explains that VR was never going to ‘take off’ in its current state and that the real deal might be just around the corner? Or do I laugh it off and go the more blasé route of “Maybe!”

The truth is, I don’t know if VR will get to where it needs to be before its biggest players throw in the towel. As much as I want it to succeed, I don’t want to launch into a scathing defense of something I’m unsure about. But, what I can do is tell you all the reasons for and against the industry’s eventual success. The prospect of which list outweighs the other is really in the eye of the beholder at this point. Is VR dead? You decide.

VR Is Dead!
Current VR Is Too Expensive, Complicated, And Not Good Enough

It would be fair to describe VR’s existing fanbase as enthusiast. That’s because you really do need to be passionate about this tech to justify getting into it. The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive cost a fairly reasonable $349 and $499 respectively, but that’s far from all you need to use them. You’ve got to buy a gaming PC powerful enough to run them, which is likely to cost around double the price of the headset. Then you’ve got to find space in your house/flat to play. Then you’ve got to set up external sensors for tracking that messy up the room and make setting up for VR a headache. Then you’ve got to find time to turn it all on and make sure it works right before actually enjoying a VR experience. That’s a lot of sacrifices. Oh, and you might do all of that and then discover VR makes you too sick to play.

Even if it doesn’t, current sVR isn’t perfect. It’s amazing, for sure, but there’s a raft of factors working against you. Pushing a display made in 2016-2019 against your face allows you to see the spaces between pixels, distorting the image. Lack of haptic feedback means there’s nothing to stop you when you try to walk through a wall. Limited environmental tracking means there’s no warning if a pet, kid or piece of furniture suddenly moves into your play area. Nudge

I’ve had my fair share of VR crashes. I’ve rolled down the side of Lydden Hill in Dirt and smashed into every corner in Project Cars. I don’t have a driving license, so don’t judge. But, for all your cinematic expectations, crashing is usually one of the most awful, suddenly sickening sensations you can experience in VR. But not in Curfew – Join the Race.

This short piece, the latest from UK-based Rewind, is set to release next week. It ties into the upcoming Sky TV series of the same name and was produced in partnership with Endemol Shine. In the show, the UK has been infested with a zombie virus. For one reason or another, this pits a series of survivors in a vicious race to escape the country. Each episode hones in on a different character. This VR entry is like its own self-contained episode in the series.

You find yourself somewhat cramped up in the passenger’s seat of one car, sitting next to a silent driver named Eduardo. As you race for first place, you’ll be in contact with a woman named Helena over the radio.

Rewind has some neat ideas here. Creative Director Daryl Atkins told me that the studio had a surprising degree of autonomy over the piece’s script and development. You’ll see cars and characters from the show, but the events of the experience are largely separate.

You communicate with Helena using a handset mapped to Oculus Touch’s buttons, which feels seamless and natural. Rewind explained that, to keep the pace going, many of the game’s light interactions are optional. At one point you’re asked to hit the boost but, if you don’t, Eduardo will eventually reach over and do it for you. It’s a clever way to keep the experience flowing without allowing for unnatural pauses between commands and actions.

It’s that crash that’s the star of the show, though. Inevitably your journey gets a little hairy and you find yourself spinning offroad. But, instead of a stomach-churning stop and mind-breaking corkscrew, Rewind makes some clever sacrifices in order to retain a sense of coherency and comfort. The screen fades to black and, when it comes back, you’re mid-air in slow motion. Items from the car glide past your face and Eduardo seems frozen in time. The screen fades out two more times, with the entire sequence lasting around 20 seconds.

Perhaps not the most realistic sensation, then, but in a weird way it mirrors that sense of time slowing as you, say take a bungee jump or do something equally nerve-racking. More importantly, though, it never once made me feel ill or disorientated. It was, oddly enough, VR’s most comfortable car crash yet.

When you land you find yourself upside down. It’s initially confusing and requires you to gather your bearings. Again, I sort of imagine that to be like getting into an actual car crash, though I’m fortunate enough not to be able to verify that personally. Then the zombies come and well, yeah, you know how that

Good news colleagues! There’s an all-new reason to jump back into Neat Corp’s Budget Cuts this Valentine’s Day.

The indie dev today launched Budget Cuts Arcade. It’s a new mode for the original game that you can access by finding the arcade cabinet in the menu. As the name suggests, Arcade Mode is all about scoring. It includes four brand new levels that will push your sneaking skills to the absolute limit. There’s a local leaderboard system so you can challenge friends to beat your best and three difficulty levels will help you find the right fit. Eight new collectibles can also be found in this mode.

Unsurprisingly, the mode is also intended for use in VR arcades around the world.

It’s great to see Budget Cuts getting more content. The campaign’s short length was one of our main complaints when we reviewed the game last year.

That’s not all that’s new in this update, though. There are some tweaks made to the game that make the hardest difficulty “a bit more difficult” and fix various other bugs. Again, issues with bugs were one of the biggest talking points in our review, so we welcome any fixes. To celebrate the launch, Budget Cuts is set to have a half-price sale for a few days, too.

Expect more from Budget Cuts later this year. Last month we reported that Neat Corp is bringing the game to Sony’s PSVR headset, and may even port it to Oculus Quest too. Fingers crossed we hear more about that soon.

The latest action adventure game from Oculus Studios will arrive on the Rift later this year. “It’s the twilight of the gods, with Asgard’s inhabitants consumed by bickering and selfish exploits. You, Fledgling God, are birthed in an explosion of light—a clash of primordial forces of nature. Your story begins in medias res with a

A book out next week tells the story of the founding of Oculus VR based on hundreds of interviews across several years.

I read an early version of the Harper Collins book by Console Wars author Blake Harris. We’ve decided to refrain reporting certain elements of the book until we verify information, or until we read the finished edition which arrives February 19.

The draft I read, however, is an intimate portrait of Palmer Luckey, Nate Mitchell, Brendan Iribe and other key members of the Oculus founding team. They assembled in 2012 to realize consumer VR and just two years later were acquired by Facebook for $3 billion. Written in a “narrative non-fiction” style, the final section of The History Of The Future follows the path Luckey took after September 2016, when a Daily Beast article tied him to “secretly funding Trump’s meme machine.” It ends after Luckey’s departure from Facebook in March 2017.

Though we broke news of Luckey’s exit, Facebook representatives wouldn’t say at the time whether the departure was voluntary. Instead, they said he’d be “dearly missed.” Luckey was also quiet on the subject despite lasting questions surrounding the misleading public statement he issued.

Late last year the Wall Street Journal reported Luckey “was put on leave, then fired.”

From the Wall Street Journal:

“Internal Facebook emails suggest the matter was discussed at the highest levels of the company. In the fall of 2016, as unhappiness over the donation simmered, Facebook executives including Mr. Zuckerberg pressured Mr. Luckey to publicly voice support for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, despite Mr. Luckey’s yearslong support of Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the conversations and internal emails viewed by The Wall Street Journal.”

VP of VR/AR at Facebook Andrew “Boz” Bosworth published on his Twitter the statement “we did not pressure him to say something untrue.”

I’ve reached out over direct message to Oculus co-founders Nate Mitchell and Brendan Iribe in hopes of understanding what happened in Luckey’s final months at the company. Iribe has not responded to my messages. I also reached out to Luckey, who responded but declined to comment publicly until the book’s release. I received the following statement over email attributed by Facebook PR to Mitchell, Head of VR Product:

It’s certainly surreal to see such a huge part of our lives turned into a few hundred pages. The book’s dramatization of our history is not always consistent with what happened, and some of the stories are definitely not reflective of our real relationships. That said, what I hope people take away is the spirit of Oculus: we lived, dreamed, and breathed VR. We worked to build something that would make the community proud, and it wasn’t easy nor without mistakes. VR has always been much bigger than just Oculus, and I’m looking forward to what this community builds together in the next 10 year chapter.

Harris sent an email late last week circulating with Facebook employees working on the VR and AR teams. I read

Learn the art of mixing beats in the worlds first ever live DJ class in VR. Imagine someone came up to you and asked you to jump on the 1’s and 2’s and lay down a fat beat. Would you know exactly what that means? People familiar with a mixer and CDJ may be able